Maya-202

A Star Wars-inspired Story

Volume I

Season I

The Two-Prince War

Chapter 4 - Escapade

It felt like Aren and Artex had been walking for hours across the strip of deep maroon rock that made up the majority of the Deep Beyond. The worst part was it was completely barren, with no signs of life other than the pair anywhere nearby. But, Aren managed to be 'entertained' by Artex's stories from the Clone Wars, at least for the most part of their little walk. It seemed like forever, but eventually, they stumbled across the so-called 'Staff Centre' which neither had seen before but both had heard of. It was the centre for all the creatures that worked as part of the Deep Beyond, policing the galaxy. The Baaneraxx were creatures that came from the Deep Beyond, were born there and from quite a young age, all worked there. They were rarely ever seen outside, unless chasing some sort of Intergalactic criminal of course. It was difficult to describe, but they looked a bit like burnt crimson trees merged with humans. Many of them were wandering around, and the whole place resembled a little village of sorts. There were lots of red 'houses' dotted around a circular plaza of sorts, and whilst most of them were used for living in, some were also where high-technology surveillance teams were set up, monitoring the galaxy for any sign of significant galactic threat. It was presumed that this place had formed after the return of Emperor Palpatine and the Sith Order to ensure that an event as catastrophically endangering for the universe would be prevented from ever happening again.

The pair were perched high up on a red rock. Lots of Baaneraxx appeared exiting the buildings, hopping into fighters and zooming away, which gave Aren an idea that was rather unethical, and he would feel guilty about, but he reminded himself that desperate times called for desperate measures. "Ok. Hopefully one of those Deep Beyond fighters will be unoccupied, maybe we could hijack one of them to escape and find out what on Coruscant is going on," Aren proposed. Artex nodded, and agreed with a "Roger Roger. Also I think those fighters are called Tranqu-freighters. You know, Tranqu like Tranquiliser as in they put the criminal down and take them back for imprisonment… Yeah it's a very loosely connected name, and kind of dumb I know…" he laughed in his droid way. Aren chuckled softly at his rambling, but now it was time for action. "Hey Artex, follow me," he suggested, and once again received a 'Roger Roger'. They leaped from the rock onto a sandy hill and slid down it to the main centre. "Aghh!" Artex yelled quietly after landing on his thin knees. "Are you alright?" Aren asked.

"Yeah I'm ok thanks. I don't have the flexibility and endurance of a Jedi, and one of my screws feels like it came loose from that jump!" Artex said. Aren promised to look at him and try to fix the screw once they were on board the ship and on their way out of here. They crawled along, hiding behind more large boulders on the ground and at one point a litter bin. Whilst many Baaneraxx had gone, some were still patrolling the main area, checking that nobody was breaking in and up to no good in their absence. When the coast was clear, they snuck up to one of the house-type buildings, and in the distance, a Tranqu-freighter could be seen in the parking space of another home. Artex pointed at it, "What about that one?" he whispered. Aren gave a thumbs up to signal a 'Yes' to him. Hugged against the building's walls, they shimmied to the other side, then when no one was watching, they dashed across to the stationary Freighter. It was quite large, and similar to A-wings that Aren had seen before in history books about the Galactic Civil War, but the back was stretched out so it became longer in length, and it had two wings opposite each other, both positioned at the front of the ship. "Now we just have to figure out how to get in it," Aren commented, trying to unlock the hatch into the cockpit. "It might need keys or a password," Artex informed him, but he knew what it meant, and he didn't really want to have to go up to a Baaneraxx and rob them of their keys, although he reminded himself that he was already going to steal this ship, so worrying about moral choices now was unnecessary. However, he didn't want to waste time by having to search around to unlock the vehicle, so he decided to go a much quicker route to get in there. Aren's force powers had a 'speciality' of sorts – he reminded himself that his abilities with rocks were, as strange as it was, better than his force powers concerning other things. He warned Artex to step away for a moment. Using his 'special trick' as he liked to call it, he backed away from the fighter to a large, empty space, and pressed his hand to the ground. Using all of his effort, energy and strength, he used his Psychokinesis and, whilst making Artex's visual receptors almost pop out of his head in amazement, ripped a huge chunk of stone from the land. He proceeded to throw the humongous rock into the ship's windows, shattering the glass into miniscule pieces. An alarm blared, splitting their ears. Artex was desperate to ask questions about what he had just seen, but he was told to hop into the freighter swiftly, as it's Baaneraxx owner could be seen running out of the house next to it raging. "Apologies, I'll get it back to you soon once we're out of here, I swear!" Aren told the (probable) owner, although he didn't know if they would understand what he said.

"We'd better get out of here!" Artex panicked, after seeing that a few more Baaneraxx were gathering around with blasters, aiming at the stolen ship. After a few seconds, Aren easily managed to get a hang of the controls of the ship (so flying must have been something he remembered how to do, which was good), and they levitated and eventually zipped off and out of the Main Centre.

In the rear-view cameras of the ship, a Baaneraxx walked up to the angry one and put his hand on his shoulder. The crippling guilt started to set in now for Aren. However, they appeared to talk for a second, and then they began laughing. "I do not like the look of that…" Aren worried, and then Artex caught what he was talking about when he glanced at the cameras. The droid could sense the Jedi's feelings without any need for the Force, his face told all. "Hey, don't feel too bad. It was the only way we were ever gonna get out of there, unless we waited for visitors to the prison cells to arrive and begged them for a lift out, and even that would have been unlikely they would have let two random strangers on their ship," Artex comforted. Aren thanked him, and was about to explain how he could get very anxious sometimes, but they were interrupted by a humongous shadow that rose above the floating freighter. The huge shadow was… a giant red creature. Neither of them knew what it was at first sight, but it terrified them. It looked like a normal Baaneraxx, if its size had been multiplied by 100, and in its hands it carried to large poles that glowed with maroon electricity. "W-what in the Force is t-that?!" Artex stuttered, before he realised he could perform a quick database scan to find out and did so. Aren looked at him waiting for an answer. "Apparently, this creature is a guardian of the Deep Beyond. It is there to prevent prisoners from leaving," he notified him. They had to think how to get past, and fast, otherwise they were worse off than Bantha Fodder. The blaster cannons on the front of the freighter were not going to be of any use, as they would hardly even cause a scrape on the skin of this monster guardian-type thing. Suddenly, it took a swipe at the ship with one of its big electric staffs, and they had to dodge out of the way with the controls very quickly. "Arghhh, can't you just throw rocks at it or something?" Artex asked. Aren shook his head.

"Not from in here I can't, unfortunately." But then, Aren thought. "Artex, I need you to take over the controls for a second and land the ship whilst I fight this thing on the ground," he suggested.

"What?! No offense, but that thing is far, far bigger than you! I can't let you go down there alone!" Artex protested.

"I need you to trust me, Artex. We've gotten this far. Even if we tried to fly out of here right now, the guardian could probably claw onto and snatch the ship in the middle of the air with those massively long arms. If I can at least tire it out by making it kind of… chase me on the ground, we might be able to get away," Aren reasoned with him.

"I still have a really bad feeling about this, but… Roger Roger," Artex agreed, fearing for his new friend's life.

The monster kept swinging at them, but they managed to avoid his strikes and briefly land on the tiny floating island hovering in the centre of the deep red atmosphere. "May the force be with you, Aren," Artex wished nicely after Aren had hopped out, and before he could reply, Artex had taken off and upwards again, but that was exactly what Aren had told him to do in the very short planning conversation they had whilst landing and simultaneously staying out of the beast's range. This was a gamble. They had no idea if this would actually work, or whether the monster's attention would still be on the stolen ship. At first it appeared as if the latter scenario were true, as the guardian's head curved up and followed Artex and the craft, but Aren put a stop to that almost immediately. After tearing another huge chunk of gravel from the ground, he threw it at the beast's head, and it became frustrated instantaneously once it realised who had thrown the boulder. It lifted the electric staff in its right hand and came crashing down onto the island in attempt to hit Aren. Instead, Aren jumped out of the way, and the staff battered the ground, breaking the platform almost into two pieces. Luckily, the area Aren was not on fell away, and the half of the island he resided on was still holding up, although more cracks were beginning to form in it. Upon seeing the small area of land breaking up, Artex started worrying again for the friendly Jedi. The space Aren stood on was gradually decreasing, until there would be none left and he would fall to his doom. Aren once again continued to pelter rocks at the guardian, but it didn't appear to really be doing anything. The creature took yet another stab to the ground after Aren dodged the electrostaff for about the third time, and the island really took a blow this time. Its edges crumbled into the ruby abyss, and the Jedi was really in a tight spot now. Artex decided, as much as he did not want to divert from the plans, that he would distract the beast again. He fired the fighter's blaster cannons, and the guardian glanced up for a nanosecond. Unfortunately, the thing was clever enough to see through the diversions now, as its focus shifted straight back to Aren.

The staff came down another time. However, something kicked into Aren's memory – his Force Powers weren't all lifting rocks. He almost felt the memory of his training with his floating powers, and there was a man there – a handsome, elegant man with brown hair. He couldn't remember the guy's name, but he must have also been a Jedi as in the memory, he possessed a lightsaber. He had a moment of happiness that a memory had come back, but he put those emotions to one side for now. The important thing right at this moment was that the Force could allow him to glide! He formed another plan to defeat the guardian, and he hoped Artex would figure out what he was up to when he put the new strategy into action. Using all of the, very little, energy he had left, he strode and then leapt off the now minute platform. Artex couldn't believe what he was seeing, yet again. A yellow 'glow' almost appeared around Aren, and he levitated in mid- air. The creature seemed to be as confused, as it stood there stunned for a moment. Then it transformed its confusion back into irritation and aggression that it had not taken what it believed to be an escaped prisoner down yet. Artex was clueless about what to do next, but out of the corner of his visual inputs, he thought he could see Aren give him a confident look, and a nod to him. Artex processed this for a second. If he had eyes they would have lit up, as his programming came to the conclusion that Aren wanted him to swing in and rescue him around about now. Aren used his Stone Telekinesis to psychologically take hold of the entirety of what was remaining of the island, and as the beast made a final slashing action with both its staffs, Aren chucked the island of rock at its hands as they came together as it tried to stab him, knocking both electrostaffs out of its arms in a howl of annoyance. Right at the same time Artex manouvered the fighter in a nose-dive action, and arrived next to Aren as soon as the boulder left his mental grip. Aren sprung back into the ship and swung into the seat next to the B1 Battle Droid.

"That was… incredible!" The droid squealed with excitement, "the throwing the island thing was so cool!"

"Are you kidding me? Your piloting was fantastic, you did just as many amazing things to help with taking the guardian down!" Aren praised the droid. The droid thanked him and gave him a thumbs up. "Thank you! In all honesty, I wish that I'd been more open to the Jedi back when I was fighting against the Republic, instead of just trying to blast them on sight. You guys are cool, and very kind!" Artex murmured, sounding a little guilty again. "Hey, thank you, but don't feel guilty. It was your programming. You couldn't help it. Anyway, let's focus on the good news. We've done it! We've escaped!" the Jedi said with radiating positivity.

"Yay! Now it's time to get your memory back!" the droid celebrated, and Aren calmly smiled at him.

"I suppose… we should start with a guy I remember…" the Jedi finished, and then stared out of the window whilst the fighter rose out of the Deep Beyond, and into the space he hadn't seen for so long.